Dr. Yore-VanOosterhout, research manager at the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy at GVSU, has been on Calvin’s Institutional Review Board for several years. He submitted this letter of resignation to President LeRoy and Provost Toly on March 17 and offers it now as an open letter.

It is with anger and deep bitterness that I submit my resignation from the Institutional Review Board of Calvin University, a position I have enjoyed for three years as a community member. 

In addition to serving on the IRB, I regularly collaborate with my colleagues at the Center for Social Research through my role as research manager at the Community Data and Research Lab, in the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University. 

My partner is a Calvin College alumnus, and we follow news of the university closely. Last month, I was surprised to learn of the center’s rapid exit from the university, due to the need for “greater entrepreneurial freedom, access to capital, and agility,” as it was announced at the time. I am angered to learn this week not only that this announcement was apparently dishonest, but that my colleagues’ departure seems to be due — at least in part — to your enforcement of harmful, misguided policy. As you are quoted in the Chimes article this week, Provost Toly, “those policies do not allow us knowingly to hire or continue the employment of someone who is in a same-sex marriage.” 

I do not fault my colleagues at the Center for Social Research for not being more forthcoming about the full reason for their departure. They are, undoubtedly, trying to put their new enterprise on as strong a footing as possible despite a rushed departure. Furthermore, I am sorry if my resignation puts them in a delicate position with the university moving forward. 

Nevertheless, I cannot stand by while they struggle. I do not share your beliefs about sexuality, nor your views on marriage. This is not why I am stepping down, however. Instead, I find it unacceptable that the leadership of Calvin University, vested in the comfort and safety of power and privilege, has cast out my colleague for the act of consecrating their love for another. That you rejected them in the name of your Christ is further galling.

You may deflect my criticism, pointing instead to the policy in question and an employee’s apparent violation of the same. I will remind you, however, that a policy lives not only through those who craft it but, perhaps more so, through those who permit it to stand unchallenged and continue to enforce it. 

In the face of your condemnation, my colleague did not abandon their spouse to protect their career. My remaining colleagues did not accept your policy, even knowing that such a position would cost all of them their professional home of many years. In this act, the team at the Center for Social Research has done more for the cause of Christ than you could ever hope to do by enforcing this policy.

I am ashamed to be affiliated with an institution that maintains such abhorrent views. I am proud of the team at the Center for Social Research, however, and I will join them in leaving my role at Calvin. My resignation is effective immediately.

I hope that you find the light, and soon, for the sake of the many others at your institution whose sexuality and/or gender identity does not align with “the Christian Reformed Church’s understanding of a biblical sexual ethic.”